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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23991256">turn from the spinning wheel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nestorius/pseuds/nestorius'>nestorius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Metalocalypse (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Ideas, Canon-Typical Behavior, Drug Use, Pre-Canon, Road Trips</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:47:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23991256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nestorius/pseuds/nestorius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How to get out of Florida.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>turn from the spinning wheel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I uploaded this under a different name a few years ago and never bothered working on it. I have rewatched Metalocalypse. We're fucking doing this my guys</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nathan breaks his leg on a sunny day in late August. Coach keeps yelling at them to get water but Nathan's not a pussy, he doesn't need water (except when he goes down to the beach at three am with a cigarette and a stolen beer and stands waist-deep and listens to the whales dying far away), it's only like ninety, that's not even hot, not for Florida in August, and he's running down the field after the ball but it hits him in the chest instead of falling into his hands and the shock of it pushes him offkilter and he trips over his ankles and the crack, the CRACK, that's audible, and he's on the ground with his femur poking out of his skin and it doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt at all. Looks pretty fucking grim, though, which is cool. He takes a few moments to play with the exposed bone, and then he stands up on it and walks heel-toe-heel-toe back to the benches where Coach and the rest are standing and says "I missed, can we try that again."</p><p>"Jesus CHRIST, Explosion," Coach says, and he makes Nathan sit down for some fucking reason, and makes him drink a Gatorade which is fucking gross because it's the lemon kind, and ten minutes later there's an ambulance pulling up. He lies on the gurney and looks at his ruined leg and thinks about the season opener with Tampa Bay High and then he starts yelling, yelling, yelling, and it's not till they stick him full of morphine in Room C of Trauma/Emergency that he stops.</p><p>Leg still doesn't hurt.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The first surgery means that he can't go to the first week of junior year. The infection from the first surgery means he can't go to the second or third weeks of junior year. The wheelchair means that he can't go to Gulf High School anymore because they don't have ramps or an elevator. The district sends a tutor over but she mostly ends up talking to Mom in the living room while Nathan disconsolately spins his wheels in the guest bedroom on the first floor. Mom won't bring his stereo downstairs. His leg doesn't hurt, this wheelchair is gay, but Dad says he has to stay in it until he gets better. Don't be a goddamn hero, he says, this ain't war, you're too young to be lame. And to be fair Nathan can't really WALK. One leg works and the other doesn't and the one that works won't bear all his weight for more than ten paces.</p><p>No one from the team stops by to see how he's doing.</p><p>Getting out of the house at four am sucks and is hard but he discovers that the chair folds up. If he folds the chair up he can push it out the screen door and kind of scrape himself after it. And then it's just a question of getting over the lawn and down the street. The beach entrance is two blocks down. It's late September and the night's still so sticky and thick that you have to carve the air out with your hands as you're walking (or, uh, wheeling) and breathe through your nose. The sand fouls up his wheels so he leaves it at the asphalt patch and kinda knee-walks the hundred yards down to the surf and he sits there as the tide comes in but he can't hear the whales.</p><p>"Fuck you," he says, to the surf that is building and crashing, and he knee-walks up the beach and he slides himself in the chair but the fucking house is up a fucking incline that he wasn't really conscious of going down and Dad gets up at five AM to let the dog out and sees Nathan struggling up the hill and tells him to get back in the damn house right now and Nathan, who has a deeper voice and would be taller if he could fucking stand up, yells "WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO," and the entire neighborhood wakes up and Mrs. Johansen from next door calls the cops for a noise complaint and Nathan has to sit on the front lawn in his stupid fucking wheelchair while the cop who is an army buddy of his dad's clucks his tongue and says "Oscar, don't worry, I'll let it slide this time, must be hard for the boy." He squats in front of Nathan like Nathan's a toddler or a dog and says, "you take it easy there, soldier."</p><p>Nathan glares at him so hard that the guy stops before he goes in for a shoulder-pat.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He can't get to rehearsals for Bloodhog. Alex and Raymond and Marius conference call him once and it works for about five minutes but then Alex's sister picks up the phone and screams at them to hang up. Mom's fighting Marius' mom so she won't drive him over to Marius' basement and Marius has the amps and the microphone and everything and finally Alex calls him and says they've got another singer, Rafael, who can also play guitar. Nathan slams the phone down so hard that the casing cracks. He locks the door and blasts Obituary until his dad takes the door off the hinges and unplugs the stereo. He takes the cord with him. Nathan stays up all night seething.</p><p>They gave him a lot of pills. The antibiotics, big ugly horse pills, made him throw up, so they gave him pills for that, but those made his heart do weird shit, so they gave him pills for that. They gave him a prescription for Vicodin, which he didn't touch because his leg didn't fucking hurt, but it was good for four refills and his mother assumed he was taking them, so now he has five bottles of Vicodin. Wheelchair's gone but there are crutches now which are even goddamn worse. Mom takes him to PT at the VA and the doctor there frowns at his X-rays and how his leg's splaying and makes him do these weird finagly exercises that he's supposed to repeat at home. He doesn't.</p><p>He lost his afterschool job at the Gas'n'Go when he was in the hospital for the infection and Donny's not going to hire him back if he has to wobble around on stupid crutches all the time. Fuck Donny. He wobbles down to the Gas'n'Go anyways at two AM on a Saturday night with one of the bottles of Vicodin emptied into a plastic bag and staggers back home flush with cash. More than enough to make up for time lost and he still has eight pills left, plus the other four bottles. He can't work the brakes and Mom won't drive him to the record shop in Tampa but he can limp back up the stairs to his bedroom with the stereo (he found the cord in Dad's underwear drawer) and listen to Venom and Motorhead with his rapidly dying headphones and make plans to ransack the Import section at the back of the store.</p><p>The next week there's a bigger crowd and he runs out of the eight pills and the second bottle and one of the guys turns out to be Franklin from the football team. He tilts his head at Nathan and says "Nathan? Nathan Explosion? Dude! I thought you were dead."</p><p>Nathan stuffs the cash in his pocket. Doesn't really fit.</p><p>Franklin won't go away. "Audrey said you died 'cause you bled out during surgery."</p><p>Nathan slept with Audrey once, maybe twice, or at least she blew him in the locker room, and she dragged him out to the Whataburger a couple times where he sat in silence with his fries and she talked over him and he remembers vaguely that he was supposed to call her on the day his leg broke but that was like a month and a half ago.</p><p>"Are you coming back to school? I mean your leg ain't fixed yet but it's going to be, right? We could use you."</p><p>"No," he says, and he picks up his crutches from where they're leaning on the wall and hobbles the two miles back down to Green Key Road. And on the way he thinks no, he's not going back to school. The tutor leaves homework for him on the table and Mom stood over him a few times making sure he did his differential equations or whatever but he's bigger than her and she has work and if he wants to barge over to the couch and watch reruns of He-Man he can do that. School sucked ass. He didn't really like football in the first place, he was good at it but they only put him on the team because the school counselor wanted him to have Another Outlet for his feelings or whatever, and everyone else on the team was a dick and Coach was a dick and yelled at him for being too aggressive which is bullshit because that's what football fucking is, and now he doesn't have to worry about keeping his average over 65. When he gets home he breaks into Dad's cigarettes and sits on his bed with his headphones on and looks at the moon through his window. If he listens very carefully he can hear the waves crashing. Still no whales, though.</p><p>He puts on Autopsy and falls asleep to that.</p><p>He's not going to school anymore. The thought makes him happy, a little. He'll be seventeen in a week. Donny probably won't hire him back even when his leg gets better but he'll be able to use the car then and maybe he can work full time. Working sucks but you get money out of it. He pulls the bills out of his pocket and spreads them on his pillow. That's a lot and it doesn't include the amount from last week. Maybe he can go to Tampa. Move down the street from the record store and help out in the back and raid the Import section with an employee discount.</p><p>On his birthday he makes the regular trek to the Gas'n'Go and slouches under the floodlights till the bums meander over to him. Someone hands him a bottle of Jack in a paper sack and the taste of it makes him a little dizzy. If he leans against the wall in just the right way it's like his leg isn't crooked at all. Things stand, this isn't such a bad birthday, he's making money and he's drinking Jack and the night is sweet with the last blooms of the season. He takes a proffered joint from someone in the crowd and listens to the muttering of the world around him.</p><p>But the bag isn't bottomless - he only brought the one bottle - and the crowd disperses when they see he's out. Nathan shakes his head to clear the fuzz from his head and struggles over to the Dumpster for his crutches.</p><p>"Hey."</p><p>He looks up. There's a guy there under the floodlights. He has long red hair in a ponytail, pierced eyebrows. Nathan vaguely recognizes him. He just bought half the bag, and he's been buying shit for the past two weeks.</p><p>"You're undercharging," the guy says. "You know how much that dose goes for in LA? Twice the price. And you ain't got no competition around here, far as I can tell."</p><p>"So?"</p><p>"So you're losing money," the guy says, with a touch of exasperation. He squints at Nathan. "How'd you get all those vikes, anyways? Your grandma fall down the stairs?"</p><p>Nathan slams his crutch against the dumpster. It makes a ringing sound.</p><p>"Wait, those are yours?" The guy squints again, this time at the crutches. "The fuck you ain't taking your Vicodin for?"</p><p>"Doesn't hurt."</p><p>"Even more reason to take it."</p><p>"Whatever," Nathan says, and he tries to walk out to the road, except his legs aren't working even more than usual and the broken one folds beneath him. He sits on the warm asphalt half-stunned. The pot and Jack collect in his head and make his vision blur.</p><p>"Dude, are you okay?" The guy squats over him. "Can you walk?"</p><p>Nathan pushes himself on his crutches and he's fine for a moment but his leg folds again and this time he hits his head against the Dumpster as he goes down. The world flickers and he comes to with wetness trickling down his forehead and collecting at the side of his mouth.</p><p>"Should I call someone?" he hears the guy say. "You're like, you're a kid. Are your parents around?"</p><p>"Fuck that, don't call my parents."</p><p>"Okay, okay." The guy hesitates. "Can I give you a ride somewhere, at least?"</p><p>"I can walk."</p><p>"Come on. Where you live?"</p><p>Nathan doesn't want to tell this weird guy where he lives. "Near the beach."</p><p>"Beach is only like two miles from here." The guy blinks. "You walked two miles on your fuckin crutches? Just to sell vikes? Jeez man you're only like fifteen."</p><p>"I'm seventeen," Nathan mutters. "As of like. Three hours ago."</p><p>"I'll give you a ride." The guy taps his pocket. "Least I could do after you sold me these at a steal, am I right?"</p><p>Nathan really doesn't want to do this but the other option is sitting in the parking lot of the Gas'n'Go until hell freezes over, or something. He lets the guy help him to his feet and they stagger to a beat-up old van with a glow-in-the-dark wizard painted on the side. He slumps against the passenger door and glares straight ahead as the road falls in front of them and his life probably would have been very different if he hadn't noticed the cassette on the dashboard.</p><p>"Holy shit."</p><p>"What."</p><p>Nathan holds the cassette up to the light, like it's a rare jewel. "This is Pestilence!"</p><p>"You know Pestilence?"</p><p>"Where the hell did you get this? This summer I called all around the record shops in Tampa and Clearwater and they didn't have it and no one had even heard of it!"</p><p>The guy grins. "Yeah, a steal, ain't it? I picked it up in this janky little record shop in Vegas for like two bucks. It was on the sales rack, can you imagine?"</p><p>Nathan doesn't even ask. He takes the cassette and sticks it into the tape deck. The drums power on with a bestial grunt and the beats hammer him to the seat. The sound system's tinny and there's noise from the road but holy shit this is good. Drives a spike through his brain and puts his neck swinging.</p><p>Road noise, though. That's interrupting the drums, getting between the strings.</p><p>"Pull over," he says hoarsely.</p><p>"You gonna be sick or something?"</p><p>"Just pull over," and the guy pulls over, and the clank of the car over the road stops and the only thing inside Nathan's head is Patrick Mameli roaring. He's not aware of rocking back and forth, not aware that he's headbanging, not aware of time passing. The drums rattle his teeth, the guitars scrape their strings against his heart and every single atom of him is drowned in white-hot METAL.</p><p>When the tape clicks, needing to be turned over, it's like getting shot. He slumps against the filthy window and breathes hard, leaving wet spots and steam.</p><p>"Fuck," he says, to the night in general.</p><p>The guy's staring at him, and Nathan realizes belatedly that he's not supposed to do this in public, that even when he was hanging out with the other guys in Bloodhog and they put Celtic Frost on and he zoned out they gave him funny looks, but God that was just too good. His throat tightens. He wants to clunk up to his room and write lyrics for hours. He wants to boil his vocal cords and ejaculate blood out of his throat. He wants to murder his mother and use her guts to strangle his dad. He wants to flip the tape over and listen to Side B. He needs to flip the tape over and listen to Side B.</p><p>"Dude," the guy says, "that's EXACTLY how I felt when I first heard it. Exactly."</p><p>"That was AWESOME," Nathan says. "The fuckin - "</p><p>" - the drums - "</p><p>" - the riffs - "</p><p>" - the atmosphere - "</p><p>The guy grins and pulls back onto the road. "I gotta get home, but you can borrow it, if you want."</p><p>Nathan pops the tape out of the deck and strokes it. His. For a while, anyway. "Cool. Cool. Uh. How'd I get it back to you?"</p><p>"I work at the Dine-N-Dash. You know. Up on Palmetto? Can you get there?"</p><p>It's kind of a walk, but Nathan nods.</p><p>"Ask for Pickles."</p><p>"Pickles?"</p><p>"That's my name," Pickles says, a little defensive.</p><p>Whatever, not Nathan's business if they guy has a stupid name. "I'm Nathan."</p><p>"Where do you live, again? Do I drop you off on the beach, or - "</p><p>"I live on Green Key," Nathan says, and the guy - Pickles - swings west. Once he's dropped off Nathan clunks up the stairs to his room at top speed, never minding that he'll wake his parents, and he sticks the tape in the deck and he sticks his headphones in the jack and he listens to Side B and Side A and Side B and Side A again all night long.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Nathan hobbles his way to the Dash-N-Dine two days later with the Pestilence cassette and a plastic bag with three Vicodin. He spots Pickles at the register and Pickles spots him back and Pickles nudges the fry cook and talks at him and then yells TEN MINUTES in Nathan's direction. Nathan waits out the ten minutes smoking in the parking lot and Pickles comes out wiping his hands on his greasy shirt. The air's so thick you can kick it and Nathan overheard his dad saying there's a hurricane coming up from the Keys. Good. He likes hurricanes.</p><p>Pickles lives in the basement of the Bowl-O-Rama two blocks down. Nathan can't descend into the fetid darkness with his crutches so he throws them down the stairs and sits down and goes down kind of squatting. Pickles has an amp and a guitar and a microphone and a wall, an entire WALL of cassettes, and he also has a fridge full of beer, and a much nicer stereo than Nathan has ever seen, and Nathan picks something called Reek of Putrefaction from the tape wall and sits on the couch with a beer. Pickles didn't even blink when he took one. Pickles drinks his own beer with the Vicodin and lights up a joint and watches Nathan pluck at the guitar. He can see how you make the notes fit together and he appreciates the instrument but he's not very interested in making it work. The music curdles in his brain and it's good. He really likes the vox. Dark and ugly and shot through here and there with hoarser yells.</p><p>"Hey, Nathan."</p><p>Nathan mutters. He has Jeff Walker poking holes in his lungs.</p><p>"Y'aint talk much, do you?"</p><p>"Shut up I'm TRYING TO LISTEN TO THIS," and Pickles laughs and gets another beer.</p><p>Turns out Pickles is from LA, and he used to be in a band that even Nathan out here in bumfuck suburbs Florida has heard of. He owns a Snakes'n'Barrels tape, even, though he hasn't listened to it since he got his hands on Eaten Back To Life. Pickles is twenty-two and has a lot of weird marks around the crook of his elbows and he passes Nathan the joint like they've been friends for years.</p><p>When he gets back home Mom sits him down and tells him fretfully that the VA isn't covering his physical therapy anymore but they're going to fight it and he stares and nods and goes upstairs and slots in the tape that Pickles gave him and his eyes narrow and the drums hit and his head swims and Dad pounds on the door and tells him to turn that racket down.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br/>
He's lost a lot of weight. Lost a lot of muscle, too. He frowns in the mirror and pokes at his chest. He can't go running because even though his stupid leg has stopped folding at the slightest provocation it's started to tingle and the tingling gets worse if he puts weight on it but he can lift weights in the basement and eat a lot of peanut butter. Days fall into an easy pattern. He wakes up and spends two hours doing weights, and then he stumbles down the road to the Dine-N-Dash. Pickles gets off at noon on weekdays and eventually it gets easier to climb down the basement stairs. They listen to something from the Wall of Tapes and Nathan has a beer and a joint and Pickles sometimes has Nathan hold a tourniquet while he shoots something into his arm. Pickles sometimes talks but it's at Nathan, not with him, which is fine. If Pickles is too high to move then Nathan walks on his tingling leg but otherwise he gets a ride home in the wizard van. In any case he gets back before three and takes a shower and brushes his teeth so Mom won't get suspicious when she walks in from work at four. Mom's stopped standing over him trying to get him to do his homework. The skies get real dark a few times and the wind picks up but hurricanes stay away from the Tampa Bay Area. They're all stuck down in the Keys. Lame.</p><p>Mid-November Pickles looks at him dispassionately plucking the guitar and says, "you want to learn how to play that?"</p><p>Nathan shakes his head.</p><p>"Drums? Bass?" Pickles considers. "Keyboards?"</p><p>"Keyboards are gay. I sing." He punches the couch, suddenly angry. "I was in a band but they threw me out 'cause I broke my leg."</p><p>"That's fuckin stupid," Pickles says, "you don't sing with your legs." He nudges Nathan's foot with his own. "That thing still healing? I've known you what, two months? Feels like it should be done by now."</p><p>Nathan rolls up his pant leg but it won't go up far enough so he slips his belt off and pulls his boxers down and shows Pickles the scar. That's still huge and red and the skin grafts are raised and pink and brown and the flesh is still mottled as hell.</p><p>"They had to put maggots in," he says. He remembers that, how tickly they felt, how the doctor offered to knock him out for it and how he stared down at his leg and watched them go. "That's a thing that they can do. They can just put maggots on your open wounds and the maggots eat your rotting flesh and if you're not careful they eat your not-rotting flesh too."</p><p>"Dude," Pickles says, eyes shining, "that is the most brutal thing I have ever heard of in my entire life."</p><p>Nathan pulls his pants back up. "So yeah. I'm a singer. I sing."</p><p>"What was your band called?"</p><p>"Bloodhog. Fuck them. They sucked."</p><p>"How bout you sing? I wanna hear. I bet you're good."</p><p>Nathan gets up off the couch. He gets in his stance - his leg is tingling but it will NOT fold, he won't let it - and grabs the microphone off the stand. He thinks of that night in the car listening to Pestilence and his voice comes out in a low deep grunt. It curves around the room and rattles the one box window looking out onto the street. He thinks he's singing an old Bloodhog song, the one about mutilating math teachers, but does it really matter? His chest rattles. He hasn't sang anything in weeks. Feels good.</p><p>He stops when Pickles claps. "Dude. Dude you got some fuckin pipes."</p><p>Nathan drops back on the couch, pleased that his throat doesn't hurt. He may be rusty but his technique is solid. Good. He picks up his beer and takes a swig.</p><p>"You know," Pickles says, after a companionable silence, "we could start a band."</p><p>Nathan swipes sweat off his forehead. It's really fuckin muggy today and Pickles doesn't have air-conditioning, only an old fan rattling on top of the fridge. "We can't start a band with two people."</p><p>Pickles winks. He pulls a tape off the wall and tosses it to him. Nathan just misses catching it. "That's got one person in it and it's pretty good."</p><p>Nathan looks at the tape. Burzum. He's about to stick it in the stereo when he notices the time blinking on the microwave. "Oh fuck my mom's going to be home in fifteen minutes. You good to drive?"</p><p>The sky is a boiling black when they come out onto the street. The mugginess is like walking into a wall. Lightning at the edge of the horizon and the wind's blowing hard enough to bend the palm trees.</p><p>"Hurricane," Nathan says, as they climb into the van. "Cool."</p><p>Pickles slams the door and jams the key in the ignition, lights a cigarette. "Never been through a hurricane. I've only been here four months."</p><p>"They're pretty cool. If you don't die. Last time there was a category two I went down to the beach and this shark, this fuckin huge shark washed up and it was still alive for a while and it kept trying to bite me. It was brutal." They get on the road. "Why'd you come to Florida, anyway?"</p><p>Pickles taps his cigarette out the window. "We went here on tour once and I liked Tallahassee. Good blow." He snickers. "In more ways than one."</p><p>"So why aren't you in Tallahassee?"</p><p>Pickles shrugs. "Turns out Tallahassee sucks."</p><p>"New Port Richey sucks too," Nathan says. "Way more than Tallahassee." He's never left the Tampa Bay area but knows this to be true.</p><p>"I was planning to go to Miami but my transmission got fried. They said it'd take a week to fix and I didn't have enough cash anyways so I picked up a shift at the Dine-N-Dash, and then, I dunno, I went to Miami for a weekend and it was kinda boring, so I came back up here and...you know."</p><p>They drive a few blocks. The trees are warping in the wind. No rain yet.</p><p>"Thought you got residuals from album sales," Nathan says. He has one eye on the sky. The clouds are definitely circling.</p><p>"Every three months," Pickles says. "It runs out. It's not like it's not a lot or anything, I just have expenses, you know?"</p><p>"What expenses? You live in a basement."</p><p>"Blow," Pickles says, and he drops Nathan at home.</p><p>That night the storm windows crack and the house rocks on its foundation. Nathan presses his headphones to his ears and turns the stereo up against the howling of the gale. He can sorta tell why Pickles said this is good, but the vox are just - ugh, they're too screamy, no chest, and the atmosphere sucks, it's all sleepy and fuzzy and lame. Garbage. He doesn't bother listening to Side B.</p><p>The next day there're palm trees strewn across the road and Nathan's dad stays home from work with a chainsaw to unblock the driveway. Nathan tries to sneak out around the backyard but he can't climb the Johansens' fence with his stupid crutches and he has to hobble around the front, where his dad spots him. "Where are you going?"</p><p>"Out."</p><p>"No you're not." His dad puts the chainsaw down in the mess of shattered bark. "Gotta talk, Nathan."</p><p>Nathan hates talking.</p><p>"You haven't submitted any schoolwork in two months."</p><p>"So?"</p><p>"So they withdrew you from the system. You're a drop-out, Nate." His dad sighs. "I didn't want to bother you about it because it's obvious you're still in a lot of pain -"</p><p>Nathan wonders why everyone thinks that.</p><p>" - and you can always get your GED, and - I know, boy. I know it. I know the last little while has been rough for you. But - "</p><p>He keeps talking. Nathan stops paying attention. His dad's talking about the army, how he could join that, but there's no way they'll let him in the army.</p><p>"Maybe we can toss a pigskin around later, if you're feeling better? You up for that?" His dad sighs at Nathan's blank face. "Or not. You have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, remember that?"</p><p>Nathan grunts.</p><p>His dad picks up the chainsaw. "I wouldn't bother trying to get downtown," he says. "There's a shitload a trees down every which way. You might as well stay in. Take a rest."</p><p>Nathan goes back inside. Lies on the bed. He takes the Burzum tape out and puts Pestilence back in. This is good. This is hurricane music. He wants another hurricane, so he can soundtrack it properly. Next time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Nathan hates the VA. Smells bad and there are all these old people hanging around and Mom knows most of them so she has to have conversations while he sits there in the ugly bucket chairs like an idiot. He hates the crumbly waiting room and he hates the physical therapist and he hates Dr. Crow and he especially hates the physical therapist and Dr. Crow and Mom whispering to each other like he's not there. He looks out the window at the beckoning clouds.</p><p>"Nathan."</p><p>His mom's snuffling into a tissue. Nathan looks at her askance, wondering why. He wasn't listening to what they were saying. Something about his X-rays.</p><p>Dr. Crow is an old guy with rheumy eyes and hair coming out of his big nose. He looks out of the top of his glasses at Nathan and Nathan gives his best glare back. "Nathan, first of all, I want you to know this isn't your fault. Insurance should have covered more physical therapy. Three times a week for six months, not once a week for two."</p><p>Nathan hears thunder rolling in the distance.</p><p>"Your X-rays are very serious. We're talking about a future of hip dysplasia, knee problems, tendon damage. You're already putting undue pressure on the hip joint of your good leg. I'd have to get a CT scan before I'm sure but it's very likely your soft tissue damage isn't healing the way it should either."</p><p>His mom snuffles louder. Nathan wonders why.</p><p>"I'm very sorry about this, Nathan. You've spent enough time out for the count, too much time for a healthy young man, but, well, we don't have any other options." Dr. Crow rubs his glasses. "We're going to have to rebreak your leg."</p><p>His mom starts sobbing then, full-on shoulder-shaking and rocking back and forth so the chair squeaks. Nathan looks at her, embarrassed, and he looks at the physical therapist folding and unfolding his hands and he looks at Dr. Crow and then he looks down at his leg. There's a bony bump on his thigh visible even with his jeans in the way and he has to kind of slump-sit if he doesn't want his leg to do that weird tingly thing that radiates up his back and settles at the base of his neck. Taste of lemon Gatorade in his mouth on the bench in the August heat while Coach sent Franklin with fifty cents for the payphone. The ER doctor sliding a fat needle into his arm and his brain frying up. Maggots tickling. Wheels stuck in the sand. Gross.</p><p>Mom's still crying when she drives them home, which is really annoying because it's not her fucking leg. Nathan pushes himself against the window and watches the lightning spark in the distance, over the ocean. How are they going to rebreak it? Make him run after a football? Throw him down the stairs? Will they just go after him with a sledgehammer? Nathan considers. Good song title. SLEDGEHAMMER LEGSCRUSH.</p><p>Mom makes herself a drink when they get home. Nathan waits for her to disappear with the sherry into the bedroom, and then he takes his stupid crutches and waddles down to Palmetto. He'll have to wait in the parking lot for an hour for Pickles to be done with his shift but whatever. He turns onto the street and blinks. The Dine-N-Dash is gone, replaced by a heap of rubble and broken beams. Palm tree splinters and twisted metal. The sidewalk is slick with spilled oil. He didn't think the hurricane was that bad.</p><p>"Yep," Pickles says, coming up behind him. He has a cigarette in his mouth, a bottle of Jack in a paper sack - he passes that to Nathan. Nathan doesn't take a swig, not yet. "Sucks, ain't it."</p><p>Nathan grunts.</p><p>"But, hey, you know, silver lining. I was gettin bored of New Port Richey, anyways. I'm gettin on the road tomorrow. Nashville, I think. We played Nashville once. I liked it."</p><p>"Can I come?"</p><p>Pickles takes the cigarette out of his mouth and squints at Nathan.</p><p>"New Port Richey fucking sucks," Nathan says. "I'm not in school. I can pay for gas."</p><p>Pickles shrugs. "Why the hell not. Tomorrow at noon? Meet down here?"</p><p>Nathan nods. Pickles takes him down to the basement, which has surprisingly not flooded, and they finish up the bottle of Jack and listen to Demilich. Nathan lies on the couch, watching Pickles pick at his guitar. He thinks of the road going out of New Port Richey, and he thinks of alligators sunning themselves by the side of the road, and he thinks of Mom crying when Dr. Crow said they'd have to rebreak his leg. And then he thinks of the stack of bills he has shoved under his mattress from selling Vicodin to Pickles. That's enough to get him to Nashville, probably. More than enough.</p><p>His leg stopped tingling when Pickles said he could come. Hasn't started again. He's leaving tomorrow. Nathan smiles. Pickles, across the room, sees that and jolts. He's never seen the kid smile before.</p>
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